Change, Change or Be Exchanged: The Discourse of Participation and the Manufacture of Identity*

Abstract

Promoting participation is an accepted and expected component of managerial activity, reflecting current management ideology and practice. This paper explores how one particular group of supervisors, within the same UK manufacturing organization, experience and make sense of participation practices and the role of identity in that process. Our findings show that whilst supervisors may utilize the managerial discourse in formal settings they also draw upon three alternative responses. Thus contrary to much of the literature they do not represent a homogenous or univocal grouping. Our study highlights the importance of the competing bases of identity formation that supervisors draw from, and the complexity and contradiction inherent in both the managerial discourse and in supervisors' responses to it. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006.

Materiality and Space

“…Thus 'individuals are always controlled in partially unique ways' (Zanoni & Janssens, 2007, p. 1393. Furthermore, discourses of identity regulation are not static -they are fluid and ongoing, reproduced by a range of actors in multiple situations with conflicting interests (Musson & Duberley, 2007). Such situations can destabilize identity yet are conversely spaces for microemancipations (Alvesson & Willmott, 1992).…”

“….] translated by individuals' (Gendron & Spira, 2010, p. 298), or even resisted, openly or not, both individually and collectively (Musson & Duberley, 2007;Wasserman & Frenkel, 2011). The concept of identity work is precious in understanding the extent to which organizational members mobilize social identities and convey them through discourse in order to define themselves.…”

“…Alvesson and Willmott have offered a theoretical overview of these practices (detailed in Table 11.1) and, to date, several studies have attested of their empirical relevance (e.g. Empson, 2004;Musson & Duberley, 2007).…”

The discourse of management and the management of discourse

“…Austin's (1965) pioneering speech act theory also rejects the notion that language is a reliable tool at the complete disposal of management. For though management may have a certain amount of control over the act of saying (locution), the act management performs in saying something (illocution) is determined by situated social conventions beyond their control, and the act management performs by saying something (perlocution) is co-determined by those stakeholders with whom they are in dialogue (Bruce, 1983;Musson and Duberley, 2007;Searle, 1995).…”

Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics in discourse analysis

“…Entretanto, o discurso e a análise do discurso (AD) têm servido também como meio de acesso a fenômenos organizacionais mais subjetivos e complexos, permitindo aos pesquisadores compreenderem o discurso como um recurso legitimador no processo de criação de identidades corporativas (Halsall, 2009;Reynolds & Yuthas, 2008); como elemento mediador das relações entre organização e sociedade (Nayak & Becket, 2008); como elemento estigmatizante, tanto de exclusão como de inclusão nas organizações (Bendl, 2008); como elemento mediador de práticas organizacionais, incluindo aí as práticas de controle e as relações de poder em suas mais diversas formas e manifestações (Marshak & Grant, 2008;Carrieri & Corrêa, 2007;Maguire, 1999;Costa, 2007;Saraiva, Pimenta & Correa, 2004;Peci, Vieira & Clegg, 2006); como recurso no processo da construção ou da legitimação de identidades e de subjetividades no ambiente organizacional (Smith, Valsecchi, Mueller & Gabe, 2008;Driver, 2007;Musson & Duberley, 2007;Bergstrom & Knights, 2006;Doolin, 2002;Saraiva et al, 2004); ou ainda, como narrativa organizacional mitificante (Ogbor, 2000).…”